Damned Christians

[Fake Messiah]

Tucker Carlson Is Resurrecting Christianity's Ugly Tradition of Antisemitism

Tucker Carlson’s platforming of antisemitic social influencer Nick Fuentes, who proclaims “Christ is King,” evinces the reemergence of antisemitism in American Christianity. For the last 85 years, World War II and the Holocaust have made antisemitism publicly unacceptable in American Christianity, prior to which it was often acceptable.

For example, at the 1924 Methodist governing General Conference, the church’s prominent Prohibition chief, Clarence True Wilson, blamed the “filth” of films and theater on Jewish “degenerates, all of one race but of no religion, who have corrupted everything their filthy hands have touched for 2,000 years.” He warned: “No nation that has let them control its finances but has had to vomit them up, sometimes with bitter persecutions, to get the poison out of their system.” Wilson faulted German Jews for their “controlling interest in our liquor traffic.”

The audience for Wilson’s remarks included hundreds of Methodist leaders plus the church’s bishops. Yet there’s no record that his speech was controversial. Wilson continued as head of the denomination’s Washington, D.C. office on Capitol Hill for another 11 years. Methodism was then America’s biggest Protestant denomination. And its political influence was such that it was the main force responsible for persuading America to adopt Prohibition, with Wilson its chief advocate. So his anti-Jewish speech did not come from a marginal figure and likely represented the views of millions of Protestants, many of whom joined in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan resurgence, which made Jews, along with Catholics and Blacks, its chief targets.

Further adding to the openly unfriendly stances towards Jews is the crumbling of institutional Christianity, with its transgenerational teachings and gatekeepers. American Christianity is now individualized and online. It no longer necessarily entails church participation. And while a local pastor may seem dull and phlegmatic, online zealots like Fuentes can seem boldly electrifying. The local pastor might be accountable to a denomination or at least a congregation. Online “Christian” firebrands are accountable to nobody except their online fans, whose stimulation demands constant outrage. These online “preachers” don’t require repentance or self-denial, just rage against enemies, which is easier and more appealing.

Across centuries, Jews naturally are the historically favorite target of conspiracy theories. They are few in number, the conspiracists allege, but powerful and controlling through their cunning. They are so devious that they can deceive and manipulate whole nations. It’s no accident that postliberal zealots often obsess over World War II revisionism: Churchill and Roosevelt were the real villains; Hitler did not want war; the Holocaust was not as bad as portrayed, and so on.

The postliberal perspective that dabbles in if not fully embracing antisemitism often claims to be Christian. “Christ is King!” “The enemies of Christ must be defeated!” Under this perspective, Christ’s reign must be enacted by the bold and the strong who will not weakly extend mercy to Christ’s ostensible foes.

To be sure, antisemitism has always been present in Christianity. In the second century, Marcion rejected the Old Testament and insisted the God of Christianity was distinct from the Hebrew deity, for which Marcion was denounced as a heretic. But Marcionism has persisted among Christians who want to reject or minimize Christianity’s Hebrew origins. In 387, John Chrysostom as Bishop of Antioch wrote his infamous eight sermons “Against the Jews.” Martin Luther’s fierce denunciations of Jews late in his life arguably were a preamble to later German crimes. In the 1930s, radio preacher and Catholic priest Charles Coughlin denounced Jews, and made excuses for Hitler, to his U.S. audience of millions.

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/tucker-c...istianitys